Three Women I Follow Instead of Gwyneth Paltrow
I really was nice to Gwyneth much longer than reasonable: I felt I owed her for the 10-hour chicken and blueberry muffin recipes (still like her cookbooks, in fact) and I also believed that a woman who has the brains to pick this Tom Ford dress for the Oscars cannot be entirely evil. But enough is enough, there is only so much vagina-steaming I can take, so one has to move on.
I have a conflicted relationship with this new breed of super-fit, super-healthy, super-organised, super-moral influencers. Often, I think their lifestyles are as unattainable as the Kardashians’ and when it starts to veer to the homeopathic, anti-vaccine, all-chemicals-are-toxic territory, I get very uncomfortable. But occasionally, a girl wants a nice plant-based recipe or likes to fantasise about being a morning person or plans a major decluttering. So this is where I go to satisfy my cravings.
1. Jenny Mustard. This Berlin-based Swedish blogger and youtuber is cool, vegan and minimalist, so pretty much the exact opposite of me. Fortunately, she is also on the right side of reasonable and her videos about food, style and living are both beautiful and intelligent. She is non-preachy and, despite being cool, very positive in her approach. She also has amazing, amazing style: I think her makeup game is stronger than anyone’s – and I include all specialised beauty influencers in this comparison.
2. Pick Up Limes. PUL blog and Youtube channel are run by Sadia Badie, a Canadian dietitian living in the Netherlands. She started out with plant-based recipes, but as the brand became rather successful, has branched out into lifestyle content, which I possibly like even more. She’s big on lists, something I obviously approve. Sadia is so beautiful, wholesome, balanced and organised that it really is quite difficult to take. She is very nice about it, though, and tries to encourage us lesser humans as much as possible.
3. Jessica Beautician. If I simply want some inspiration for everyday vegan meals (in my case, I don’t necessarily make them fully vegan, I’m just looking for interesting ways to up my veg intake and reduce the amount of meat I eat), I often watch the What I Eat in a Day videos by Jess. She is fond of saying things like ‘turmeric is my favourite healing spice’, but I can live with it. I like that her videos aren’t super long, but manage to be very clear about how exactly to cook things.
What about you? Do you read/watch any lifestyle porn?
PS I’m on my way to Paris for a day, hence the high-quality picture.
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I had planned to post about Gwyneth myself, but you were first! So herewith what I wanted to say:
I am fascinated by people of immense privilege and how they use their influence. Gwyneth is an excellent example (I also much enjoyed the UK Vogue interview of Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice who were given pages of space to moan that they have to work to make a living).
I haven’t visited Goop for ages, but came across their podcasts a couple of months ago and listened to an episode featuring Gwyneth and Sarah Jessica Parker. They are both entertainment royalty, but only one was born into a Hollywood dynasty, the other other had to work her way up. Consequently the latter seemed to be the only one who was in any way in touch with Tellus anymore.
In the age of fake news it would also be important to look beyond politics and have more people rebut the ju-ju these self-appointed lifestyle gurus sell people. It’s one thing to tell that crystals are nice to have at home, and quite another to venture into the vaccination-territory, as you also pointed out.
I would like to believe that people know to consider the Goop medical advise (bad) entertainment that has value merely as guilty pleasure, but then again this thinking resulted in Brexit and the current US President -situations. So hats off to the precious few who systematically expose the insanity of some of the advise Goop gives people. Luckily they are given increasingly more public space.
Interestingly Goop started going muchisimas loco after they hired Elise Loehnen as chief content editor in 2014 (this in no way releases Gwyneth from any responsibility, I’m not saying that). Apparently she’s the brains behind the now-legendary vaginal steaming. It is very good news that Conde Nast ditched the Goop-magazine from its repertoire recently.
In all honesty I don’t find Gwyneth particularly inspiring and I’m not a huge fan of her acting. I’m fascinated by her influence and the free reign she’s been granted (so far). Given the choice, I’d rather listen to Gwyneth’s podcasts than the Kardashians ( I cannot deal with people -even if they’re fictional- who cannot speak in full sentences), but frankly speaking, I read her critics more often than whatever the Goop-team have written.
So who I DO follow for lifestyle-porn -fix? Garance Doré is very high up on my list. For clean-eating weirdness I like the Hemsley Sisters and Sarah Wilson. For just eating, Rachel Khoo.
So sorry for the late reply, AK – I wanted to respond with something that would be worthy of your excellent comment, but frankly, I have nothing to add. I agree. Also, I do like the Hemsley sisters and own their books (not the new ones, though, should maybe get them). And I check in with Garance regularly, too 🙂
Amen to that (Paltrow subject). I only glanced on Coop few times after it was launched but found it really boring, also when I stumbled on her appearance on Ellen show, and she filled it up entirely by happily chatting about her pubic hair, I have very little patience for anything she needs to share with public. Scary thing is that she has so much publicity value with so little substance and not the ability to understand the responsibilities.
I admit I did enjoy elements of Goop in the beginning, although it was problematic even then. Now it’s completely insane and dangerous.
I love this post and all the comments. Anna-K is so spot-on with pointing that this is just another manifestation of the “post-truth” world we live in. The only benefit to the Trump era- as I see it- is the fact that the concept of “post-truth” has become a paradigm by which we can analyze the world around us. I highly recommend you read in the Atlantic Magazine an excerpt from the book Fantasyland How America Went Haywire: A 500 year history by Kurt Andersen (I also recommend his Public Radio show Studio 360). What is so interesting is that post-truth type thinking is not the exclusive domain of Conservatives or Liberals – both persuasions dabble in it. Moreover, apparently you can be a beautiful multi-millionaire matcha drinking, vagina steaming, Hollywood royalty or a gun-touting second amendment fanatic and employ the tenants of post-truth equally well.
I keep a little notebook where I write down expressions, idioms, quotes, and sayings that I find interesting and want to incorporate into my thinking and writing. Your “right side of reasonable” is going in there.
Enjoy Paris
*Another recommendation maybe not related to this but wonderful: Our Man in Teheran by the investigative journalism show Frontline.
https://www.thirteen.org/programs/frontline/?gclid=CjwKCAjw-8nbBRBnEiwAqWt1zZ3eycAm5Mh1CMpb2uUkv33OHN5OGzxPbcqNcf5cMDe6cg-bvY8SehoCRIMQAvD_BwE
It is unfortunately entirely true that ideology doesn’t have much to do with it. It would be easier, if it was only the alt-right and crazy fundamentalists indulging, but then I see my own friends on Facebook spouting anti-vaccination nonsense or chemtrail consipracy theories. The scariest thing is of course that I’m not entirely immune either, although I consider myself a true daughter of enlightenment.
Thank you for checking in, I will take a look at everything you shared!
Honestly you. Aspirational is relative and changing. Once upon a time it was the woman who grew up on the Upper East Side and went to a preppy all-girls’ private school, became an accomplished actress and married Chris Martin, but now whose gimmick is that her website’s notorious for selling a gold plated vibrator. Are you kidding me? That’s really your claim to fame? Your company didn’t even make the gold plated vibrator, it had been around for years before you deigned to fabricate some PR stunt around it. Ugh.
😂😂😂 Although I’m less concerned with the golden vibrator than I am with the anti-science stuff.